The Mages' Winter of Death: The Healers of Glastamear: Volume Two (20 page)

“I want to do some experiments to see if I can improve agricultural practices. The status is not important; Diana and I will never be gentry.”

“I probably shouldn’t be the one to tell you. It’s really Governor Talton’s prerogative, but he asked me to endorse a request for a knighthood for you. That will make you semi-gentry if the king chooses to grant it. We are both extremely grateful for all you and Diana have done to help Glastamear through this terrible Winter of Death.”

Michael was surprised at the proposal but thought a knighthood extremely unlikely. They discussed the sale of the Houston Plantation and they reached a price agreement within a few minutes. His banker and partner, Timothy Son-of-Timothy would settle the payment that afternoon, and the property would belong to Diana and him later that day.

Chapter 31

Three days later, Michael and Diana traveled to their new property. Because she was a healer who could deal with her own morning sickness and discomfort, Diana was well enough to join Michael, Jim Neville, and the Oxbow brothers on their journey to the foothills of the Easter Barrier Mountains to see their new plantation. They left in the morning, but they would need to spend one night in an inn at the town of Archer’s Plantation before traveling to Houston Plantation. Diana decided to travel by carriage rather than horseback, and she insisted that Michael enchant clothing for himself and for her with his earth magic
stone armor
spell. Michael brought along a chest with the steel tipped arrows that Henry Ironmaster had made from the armor of the rogue knight protectors.

Michael tied Black Dash to the carriage and sat with Diana during the trip.

They chatted as they rode along in the ornately painted rented carriage. Diana asked, “How does this system of tenancy work? We have nothing like that on Mitchell Island.”

“We didn’t have it in Hearthshire either. It goes back to the period of the Great Civil War. After Southport Province was captured and all the rebels executed, the king divided most of the province into large tracks of land, which he gave to his leading soldiers and three of his most loyal priests. There were about fifty families that were made barons of various tracks of appropriated land, which are now called plantations.”

Diana smiled, leaned over and kissed him and said, “You learned so much at William’s library that you can be my teacher. So the local gentry have owned the whole province for over six hundred years. That does explain some of their arrogance. What of the common folks if all the land went to just fifty families.

Michael explained, “Over the past six centuries, the commoners who actually worked the land developed certain rights. They included provisions that prevented them from being removed from the land unless they failed to make rent three years in a row, five years if their family had been there one hundred years or more. The idea was that one or two bad harvests shouldn’t get you thrown out of your home. Nowadays, tenants are almost never ejected from their farms and homes because of the laws of compensation. If a family improved the land, for example by planting fruit trees or building a house, they must be compensated for all their improvements and those of their ancestors before they can be expelled. Of course, the unpaid rents are netted against the settlement. In most cases, an expelled tenant leaves with enough money to start over. If the family has been in the same place improving things for generations, it makes no sense to eject them. It cost too much.”

“So the tenants on our new plantation have rights to the land. I guess I think that’s fair, but what about the fallow land?”

“You’ve visited the refugee camp near the Wellington Tea Plantation in the Green Mountains. There are several thousand refugees there who have fled from the northern provinces. I hope to settle a couple of hundred families on the fallow land after we restore the irrigation system and make or repair cottages to house them. I want to encourage newcomers to grow the same crops they did farther north. Those will serve us well if it continues to get colder every year.”

“I can see why that would be a good idea. Michael, I’m also surprised at the quality of these rural roads. In most of Glastamear rural farm roads are not paved in stone.”

“Well, the gentry expect their families to own the land forever. Over the centuries they’ve spent money improving conditions on their property. This road is paved in stone all the way to our new plantation. The excellent transportation system in Southport Province means that food moves easily even in the monsoon season. We’ll be stopping at Archer’s Plantation tonight. It’s one of the larger actual towns in the area. Most tenants live on the property they farm. In Southport the farmers have never needed to live in walled towns for protection in the way people do in Briarton and Hearthshire. Each baron maintains a local militia composed of his tenants. They are forgiven some rent to serve as soldiers when needed. They drill once a week, but haven’t actually needed to fight a major battle for fifty years. That was the Poindexter Island Pirate Incursion. It took nearly twenty days to kill or drive away all the invaders.”

“So each of the gentry has their own small army who can get together and repel pirates or brigands. Will we have our own militia? A military force could be useful in difficult times.”

Diana had guessed one of the reasons that Michael wanted to own the Houston Plantation. She knew that he could equip over two hundred and fifty to three hundred men with fine dwarfish steel short swords and arched steel-clad shields. She saw his reaction and said, “You were waiting to mention that, weren’t you.”

Michael smiled. “That thought had occurred to me, my love.”

“And you assume that I don’t know that either the plantation’s owner or his heir leads these units in battle. In fact, they charge the foe on their warhorses while their men run after them. Michael, you are a healer and will always be a healer. You are not a person who can lead a company into a battle. It is not our way.”

“Of course you’re right. I’ll need to find the right man, someone that I trust completely who is not a healer. I don’t know who that will be yet.”

Diana was somewhat mollified, but not certain that Michael would stand aside if the time came for his militia to fight. “Do you promise by the Father God and his Holy Family?”

There was a pause. “I so promise to you and to all our Healers’ Guild friends that I recognize that I’m no warrior. There is something else attractive about this specific plantation. Less than a day’s ride higher into the mountains is a dwarfish ruin with a travel room.”

Diana laughed. “You absolutely must take me too. I want to see some of these exotic places, especially a dwarfish town from two thousand years ago. I’d also love to see the Fairy Folks barrow in Fay Woods. We could go almost anywhere!”

“If you’re well enough to ride to the location, of course you can travel with me. The first place I’ll go is the mine where the steel short swords and arched shields are stored. I want to bring them to Houston Plantation.”

Diana let out a little squeal of excitement and kissed Michael long and hard.

As they traveled along the smooth well-maintained road, they saw stone farmhouses at regular intervals. The quaint cottages were made of the local gray limestone and all had red slate roofs. It was clearly an area where people didn’t fear for their safety because none of the farmsteads had walls or defenses. In the distance they saw the purple crags of the Eastern Barrier Mountains, their tops were white even in summer because of the ice rivers that began high in those mountains. Now, in late winter, their whole visible sides showed deep snow that glistened in the afternoon light. They were said to be the highest peaks on the continent, and as far as anyone knew, a human had never crossed them. On the other side, lay the Kingdom of Black Forests and farther south the Kingdom of Green Jungle, but no army had ever attempted to cross these massive peaks for an invasion.

By mid-afternoon they were in the town of Archer’s Plantation. There was a large manor house on a hilltop. It was a three-story building built around a central open courtyard like almost all the manor houses of the Southport gentry. A large overhang extended from the second floor creating a spacious shaded porch completely around the structure. There were stables and many other outbuildings all made of the same gray limestone. They had seen no wooden building on their trip. The carriage pulled up in front of the Marching to Archer Inn, certainly named after the famous song.

Diana said before she got down from the carriage, “Michael, you know that I’ve never stayed in an inn, or even been in one. There were none in Rock Point where I grew up, and the only other place I lived before we married was the Northport Guild Hall.”

“This one looks nicer than most, and it will only be for one night.”

“Oh, my love, I’m not apprehensive, I’m excited. You’ve done all the traveling and been in almost every large town in Glastamear, but I know little of anywhere besides Rock Pont, Northport, and Southport.”

The finely dressed couple with five armored guards brought stares of curiosity and whispered comments from the townsfolk. Michael noticed that the busy square had a blacksmith with a stable, a leatherworker, a general merchandise store, a bakery dairy, and a substantial temple with one fire mage in attendance. He could see other businesses on nearby streets. Archer’s Plantation looked very prosperous. The innkeeper came out to the front porch to greet the obviously wealthy customers. There were no other customers staying for the night at the inn, and Michael rented the whole third floor for his group, which included the four Oxbow brothers, Jim Neville, and a driver for the rented carriage. The rooms were well maintained and clean, a good first experience at an inn for Diana.

Over dinner, Michael described the luxurious suite that he occupied when he stayed in Briarton. He talked about his friendship with the innkeepers in several places including Sand Point, and told tales of his recent travels in the north including seeing mastodons twice during their time in the White Mountains and White Plains. They lingered over excellent wine before Michael and Diana retired for the night.

Michael and Diana woke up early, but they lingered in bed until they could hear that everyone else was up and preparing to leave. They went down to the common room for a quick breakfast of oat bread with honey, duck eggs with bacon, and blueberry tea. When they went downstairs, Seth the innkeeper greeted Diana and Michael by name. The carriage driver had told him who they were and disclosed that they were the new owners of Houston Plantation.

Diana and Michael were already known throughout the province for their charitable work, and most people assumed that they were the richest commoners in the province. When Seth learned that they had purchased Houston Plantation, he assumed they would be regulars at his inn as they traveled to and from their plantation, and he made a fuss about their presence and how he would welcome them on their return trip to Southport.

They left as soon as everyone was fed and packed, but found many of the town’s residents had gathered to see the couple who had purchased Houston Plantation. Michael and Diana walked around the square introducing themselves to each new face. The whole public introduction delayed their departure for an hour, but they met many friendly and welcoming people. The consensus seemed to be that it was wonderful that another commoner had been able to purchase the Houston Plantation.

Chapter 32

They traveled for five hours directly towards the Easter Barrier Mountains. The mountains grew even more majestic as each hour passed, but their extreme height made them appear to grow slowly. They were farther away than past experiences would indicate and that extreme height fooled the eye. After five hours the carriage stopped at a spot where a pillar stood on each side of the road. From the pillars flew the banner of the Holy Church of Perry Ascendant.

Diana said, “This is where our land starts. We need to replace those with our own banners.”

“My sweet, we have no regal banners of our own. What banner would you like?’

“I’m thinking of a pale blue unicorn with a pink mane pulling a wagon full of happy children. What do you think?”

“If that’s what you want, that’s what it will be. It should be on a snow-white field, but without knight protectors in pursuit. I assume you think I’d be too embarrassed to ride to war behind such a banner, but your banner is the perfect one for us.”

They laughed and joked as the carriage headed toward the manor house on a poorly maintained stone road. The bouncing of the carriage on its springs caused some nausea in Diana, and she was grateful when they finally stopped at Houston Plantation Village.

A short muscular man with his hair beginning to gray stepped up to the carriage and assisted Diana out. Bowing, he said, “My Lady Diana, I’m Luke, the manager of your plantation for the church and before that for the Houston family, as my father and grandfather were before me.”

Diana smiled and said, “I’m very pleased to meet you Luke. I’ve heard good things about your stewardship. Please call me Diana; we’re commoners and need no lordly titles or bowing. This is my husband Michael; Michael, this is our plantation manager Luke.”

They shook hands. Michael had discussed Luke with High Priest Simon who had a high opinion of his work in spite of the lack of funds the Houston family had been able to put into the property. Luke showed them around the village, introducing them to everyone. It was similar to the village at Archer’s Plantation, only a little smaller but with the same types of businesses and services except that there was no inn. There was a large building that served as a Perry’s Shrine rather than a full temple. The priest was Goodman Carl who seemed to be a pleasant man who didn’t have a chip on his shoulder about being assigned to this remote and unimportant post. He had received word of the change of ownership, as had Luke, directly from High Priest Simon.

The reception made both Michael and Diana feel welcome, and after meeting every single one of the town’s eighty residents, they moved on to the manor house located on a hill above the small community. The manor house was similar to the others in the province. It had three stories with mostly storage and seldom used guest rooms on the top floor, living quarters for the family on the second floor, and public and business rooms on the first floor. In addition, it had a basement for food and coal storage. A landscaped courtyard was in the center where a fountain with four bronze naiads poured water into a pool from gold colored pitchers. Surrounding the house was a wide porch, often used during the monsoon for household tasks.

The house needed roof repairs, new marble to replace broken tiles in the courtyard and first floor, and complete interior painting. Diana hired a woman to cook for them and two women to maintain and clean the house. She concluded most of the rickety furniture needed refinishing and repair or replacement, but the total cost of fixing the huge old place would be a lot less than she’d expected.

Michael busied himself with the task of forming work gangs for several project. Winter was the most important season for non-agricultural work because the local farmer tenants had little else to do. It was the only season when most were happy for any paid work. Michael organized a team to work the quarry for fresh paving stone and construction stone. He organized a team to repair the roads and wells. He had fifteen men working on the manor house, and he hired twenty men worked on repair of the irrigation pipes and ditches for the fallow fields. Another team of ten men would be busy with the preparation of the cottages in the area for new tenants. He commissioned the building of thirty new cottages in the now fallow area. One special project was to convert a large section of the manor house’s basement into a stonewalled arms storage vault with an iron clad door. He needed a place in the plantation to store the arms he would retrieve from the dwarfish mine and the arrows he had brought from Oxbow Narrows.

One of the main reasons that Southport Province was so prosperous was that farmers could raise two crops a year on most of the land. A water tolerant crop like rice would be planted before the spring monsoon began. It would be harvested in the warmest month of summer, and a second irrigated crop would be planted after the first was harvested. Michael needed to get all the construction done before the farmers needed to return to their fields to plant their monsoon crops.

On the sixth day after they arrived, Diana planned a lunch for everyone on the plantation to begin immediately after the regular weekly service at the Perry Shrine in town. Over four hundred people gathered on the lawn around the manor house, or sat on the covered porch. Diana served two whole steers, three pigs, and six sheep. Locals who had volunteered to help roasted all the meat on open fires on the grounds of the manor house. In addition, Diana had ordered four hundred trenchers of rye and wheat bread on which to serve their picnic and a hundred crocks of pickled vegetables. They served eight barrels of locally made beer. The tenants brought their own tankards for the ale and eating utensils. In addition, Diana had put out the word that anyone who wanted to add to the feast should bring something sweet. There was a table with over a hundred desserts.

Diana and Michael’s remarkable power to remember names and detail from past conversations astonished the plantation population, and everyone was pleased that a couple with no pretensions to titles or high status was now in charge. In addition, almost all the men had been hired for the six weeks until the monsoon planting, and that meant that this would be a prosperous period for the local tenants.

Michael and Diana both gave short speeches. Michael explained that they hoped to reopen all the fallow land in the foothills and settle refugees on the properties. However, if current residents wanted their own plot of land or a better situation, they would have first choice of the reopened sections. In Diana’s speech, she explained that they would be hiring everyone who wanted to work when farm chores were not needed to build new cottages for the refugees who they hoped would settle the new areas. They also needed to hire men for continued improvement and enlargement to the plantation’s common areas including enlarging the Perry’s shrine, the public market square, the schoolhouse, and the militia training area and militia’s armory.

The luncheon on the lawn continued to become a dinner using the leftovers from lunch service. It was twilight when people went home. During that afternoon, Michael and Diana had carried on conversations with almost every resident of Houston Plantation.

That night after they retired to their bedroom, Michael explained that he was going to search for the travel room that same night. He wanted to find it and a route that would allow them to get there by wagon so they could relocate the short swords and arched shields to their basement storage room. They planned to return to Southport in five days, and Michael wanted those arms stored safely in the room he’d designed for them.

Michael climbed to the roof, transformed into an eagle, and flew toward the area where he should be able to find the dwarfish town abandoned over two thousand years earlier when all the dwarves moved the continent of New Paradise with the Great Elves. After three hours of searching using his earth magic senses, he finally found a tunnel that led to the underground town. Michael converted to his normal self, dressed in the clothes he’d carried in a pack on the eagles back, and entered the tunnel. He soon came to a bronze door decorated with images of dwarves doing various manufacturing tasks.

Two iron statues stood next to the entrance. They spoke in ancient Elfish in a booming tone. “You may pass Elf-Blood,” The ancient doors swung open without a touch. “The travel room of Brimir’s Town is three levels down on the eastern side of the town. Anything you want for your own in this former home to the Brimir Tribe, is a gift from the dwarves to Gripton’s hero.”

The place was enormous compared to the small dwarfish settlement at Snow Troll Fiord or the mine in the foothills of the Mountains of Min. Michael made no attempt to explore the hundreds of rooms that he passed on his way to the travel room. It would take weeks to search this whole town for useful items. He followed the directions from the iron statues and walked directly to the travel room. Similar statues holding huge steel war hammers stood guard. They spoke. “Welcome Elf-Blood.” The door opened to reveal a room identical to other travel rooms he’d used.

Michael spoke the word to take him to the travel room in mine located in the foothills of the Mountains of Min. He brought back one sword and one shield. After returning to Brimir’s Town, he carried the sword and shield back to the entrance, but left them just inside before he walked through the tunnel. He spent the rest of the night moving boulders using the forest magic spell of
alter weight
. He created a narrow roadway barely large enough for his farm wagon using the earth spell
excavate
. In one difficult spot, he created a tunnel though a granite outcropping. Dawn came, but he had not finished a route that a wagon could navigate.

He contacted Diana, with mage thought-talk and let her know he would be busy all day creating the new route to the dwarfish town. He asked her to cancel his meeting with Luke and with the current militia captain, Scott. He wanted the route available for tomorrow because they planned to return to Southport within a few days.

The final thousand paces of the new road to Brimir’s Town crossed a flat granite ledge before connecting to a wagon road that led to the plantation’s quarry. Michael had laid it out so that the hard stone ledge would prevent wagon tracks that would lead anyone to the dwarfish site. They would not be able to get in, but he was afraid the iron guardians might kill anyone else who arrived without him. He flew over the whole route looking for problems for a wagon trip and for things that would give away his route to a casual observer.